Know Thyself

In this episode I sit down with Mel Robbins, host of The Mel Robbins Podcast and author of The Let Them Theory. Mel takes me back to the age of 41, when liens on her house, unemployment, heavy drinking, and constant anger had turned her into a person she didn’t recognize. We explore what finally moved her to change, why thinking alone never changes a life, and how she slowly separated her sense of worth from her success through therapy, a quieter life in Vermont, and learning to slow down a nervous system that never stopped running. What We Dive Into: 1. For Mel, change came when staying where she was became more painful than doing the small things she had been avoiding. Her life began to turn once she stopped waiting for someone to rescue her and started acting like the person she needed, one ordinary Tuesday at a time, without waiting to feel ready. 2. Saying let them is a boundary that helps you recognize what you cannot control, from a parent’s habits to a friend’s opinion of you. The real power comes in the second step, let me, where you choose your response, your boundaries, and how you want to show up in the relationship from here. 3. Mel came to see purpose as something that happens in other people when you do what you do. It can be lived anywhere, in a grocery store line or with an Uber driver, through the way your energy and presence leave others feeling encouraged, seen, and a little more hopeful about their own lives. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack https://www.sleep.me/knowthyself To get up to $640 off your Chilipad 2.0 with code KNOWTHYSELF ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:58 The Invisible Social Clock 13:07 The Freedom of Transparency 15:21 Perfectionism and Excellence 19:18 The Decision to Change 25:18 Separating Worth From Success 30:23 Healing a Hypervigilant Nervous System 38:31 Understanding the Let Them Theory 44:39 The Hardwired Need for Control 54:41 Context, Compassion, and Responsibility 58:46 Simple Tools for Chronic Stress 1:01:26 Let Them as an Entry Point 1:09:08 Simplicity and Communication 1:20:38 What We Hope to Leave Behind 1:23:35 Navigating Being Misunderstood 1:27:08 What Success Teaches ___________ ✨MORE FROM MEL ROBBINS ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins/ ↳The Let Them Theory: https://www.melrobbins.com/book/the-let-them-theory ↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/melrobbins ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@melrobbins ↳https://www.melrobbins.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

David Whyte trained as a marine zoologist, spent two years as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos, and went on to become one of the most beloved poets of our time. In this conversation we begin with words themselves: how they first arrive in our bodies as children, how they drift into abstraction, and how poetry can return them to direct presence. David describes the stages of attention he discovered while sitting in silence with the animals of the Galapagos, and how each deeper level of attention changes who we are and what can meet us. What We Dive Into: 1. Watching a Galapagos hawk, David moved from self-absorption to noticing, then to being seen, then to sensing the relationship itself as what was most alive. The same progression is available at the kitchen table with a partner or child, if we are willing to let it look back at us. 2. We often throw valuable things into grief, such as relationships, marriages, and plans, hoping we will not have to go down ourselves. David suggests that falling all the way to the bottom is how we find solid ground, and how the qualities we loved in someone lost begin to live in us. 3. Before David found his path, he had to refuse work that looked close to what he wanted. A stranger’s story by a fireside turned him back toward his original longing. Saying no to the near miss can feel like a loss, but it keeps room open for what is actually calling. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Waking Up: Get your 14 day free trial! https://www.wakingup.com/knowthyself Anima Mundi: 20% off with code KNOWTHYSELF https://www.animamundiherbals.com/ ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:59 Words as Doorways into Reality 04:20 Living Inside Abstraction 09:27 Attention and the Capacity for Conversation 22:28 Zen and the Contemplative Path 36:59 Speaking from Silence 38:56 Overhearing What You Didn’t Know You Knew 50:38 Grieving John O’Donohue 58:52 The Soul Friend Without a Mask 1:01:08 Ambition and Crossing the Unknown Sea 1:10:26 Uncertainty on a True Vocation 1:24:39 The Power of a Stranger 1:26:42 The Courage to Say No 1:34:42 Letting Others Remain a Mystery 1:42:52 Inner and Outer Horizons 2:02:56 Living the Questions ___________ ✨MORE FROM DAVID ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidjwhyte/ ↳Substack: https://davidwhyte.substack.com ↳Poetry & Prose: https://davidwhyte.com/poetry-prose/ ↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@poetdavidwhyte ↳https://davidwhyte.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

In this episode, I sit down with Janna Levin, a theoretical astrophysicist at Barnard College of Columbia University, Guggenheim fellow, and author of Black Hole Survival Guide, Black Hole Blues, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, and How the Universe Got Its Spots. Janna started out as a philosophy major drawn to the biggest questions, then found in physics a way of answering them that felt true for everyone, everywhere. Preparing for this conversation blew my mind more than almost any other, and sitting with her only deepened that. What We Dive Into: 1. When a massive star collapses into a black hole, the star itself keeps falling and leaves behind only curved, empty space. With no material features left to observe, every black hole looks alike, which is why physicists treat them like giant fundamental particles holding clues to quantum gravity. 2. Einstein realized the purest experience of gravity is weightlessness, the feeling of falling freely with no chair, floor, or bed in the way. What we call heaviness is really something resisting our fall, while objects simply follow the natural curves of spacetime. 3. Janna suggests technological species may face a bottleneck where the ingenuity that builds rockets also builds bombs. Surviving it could mean reaching a balance with nature so complete that a civilization becomes hard to detect, which may help explain why the cosmos looks so quiet. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyself Use code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off sitewide https://www.oneskin.co/KNOWTHYSELF Use code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off OneSkin Larineco: 50% off on remineralizing gum https://www.buylarine.com/knowthyself ___________ 00:00 Intro 02:24 From Philosophy to Physics 06:39 Made of Star Stuff 12:13 The Ever Expanding Cosmos 17:14 Before the Big Bang 21:31 How Complexity Emerges 24:42 The Nature of Black Holes 32:08 Supermassive Black Holes 39:02 Photographing a Black Hole 45:33 How Stellar Black Holes Form 47:46 Falling Into a Black Hole 56:38 The Information Loss Paradox 1:00:00 Einstein’s Happiest Thought 1:11:00 Nothingness in Physics and Meditation 1:19:56 Why Whales Don’t Go to Mars 1:24:11 Isotopia and Balance With Nature 1:30:50 The Fermi Paradox 1:32:13 Intelligence on a New Substrate 1:37:30 Humility and the Cosmic Perspective 1:41:18 The Odds of Alien Civilizations 1:46:17 Consciousness and Extra Dimensions 1:54:41 How Many Dimensions Exist 2:01:48 Time as the Fourth Dimension 2:04:56 Extra Dimensions and Dark Energy 2:12:06 A Universe Inside a Black Hole 2:19:14 Progeny of One Universe ___________ ✨MORE FROM JANNA LEVIN ↳Substack: https://jannalevin.substack.com ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jannalevin/?hl=en ↳The Moth Story: https://youtu.be/dVubvLgTcxg?si=Hkaic0osIYwBMcA0 ↳https://jannalevin.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

Elizabeth Gilbert joins me for her first public conversation after a six month sabbatical, a stretch where she stopped writing, producing, and planning so she could simply be available to life. Liz is the author of "Eat, Pray, Love", "Big Magic", and her memoir "All the Way to the River". In this conversation she speaks openly about the daily practice of two-way prayer that guides her choices, her recovery from sex and love addiction, and the story of loving her partner Raya through terminal cancer and active drug addiction. What We Dive Into: 1. Liz describes feeling trapped many times in her life, most painfully while caring for Raya through cancer and active addiction. Each time, the only way out was the truth she least wanted to tell, and naming where she was lying, hiding, or manipulating is what finally set her free. 2. Recovery taught Liz that no partner, payoff, or praise could fill her sense of scarcity around love. Sitting with the part of her that wailed for someone else at three in the morning, and promising to stay anyway, slowly built a secure attachment to herself that no other person could provide. 3. Liz no longer believes everyone must create, but she believes everyone is invited. Success can never be promised, yet telling the story within you will change who you are by the end. As AI grows more capable, the lasting reason to make things may be the one our ancestors had: it is pleasing. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Waking Up: Get your 14 day free trial!https://www.wakingup.com/knowthyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyselfUse code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off sitewidehttps://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyself ___________ 00:00 Intro 02:30 The Call to Stop 08:30 Listening for a Higher Voice 19:25 How to Recognize the Ego 26:05 The Public, Private, and Secret Self 29:12 Writing From Healed Scars 33:43 Love and Secrecy With Raya 41:10 Codependency and the Truth That Frees 47:06 Generosity With Strings Attached 53:43 Searching for Enough Love 1:00:42 The Inner Child Left Unchecked 1:03:29 Life After Seven Years of Recovery 1:11:46 Redefining Creative Living 1:19:42 Buried Treasure and Ancestral Joy 1:22:44 Ideas as Living Entities 1:30:16 Creating Without Assurances 1:33:44 The Discipline Behind Inspiration 1:38:56 Art Scars and Reclaiming Play 1:45:32 Creativity in the Age of AI 1:50:43 The Practice of Two-Way Prayer 1:55:13 Asking for Our Instructions 2:01:26 Five Days in Darkness 2:06:21 What It Means to Know Thyself ___________ ✨MORE FROM ELIZABETH GILBERT ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabeth_gilbert_writer ↳Substack: https://elizabethgilbert.substack.com/ ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GilbertLiz ↳https://www.elizabethgilbert.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

My guest today is Tom Bilyeu, the entrepreneur behind Quest Nutrition who went on to build Impact Theory into one of the most watched long form interview channels in the world. Tom is now building a procedurally generated video game called Kyzen, and in recent years his content has shifted away from personal development and toward economics, artificial intelligence, and the systems that quietly shape how we live. I wanted to sit with him inside that shift, to understand what pulled him away from the mindset conversation he had mastered and toward questions about money, power, and the trajectory of intelligence itself. What We Dive Into: 1. Tom credits his success to a simple loop: predict an outcome, run the experiment, and stay honest about what actually happened. He treats being wrong as useful data rather than a threat to his identity, which lets him adjust quickly instead of defending a position that clearly isn't working anymore. 2. Tom argues that meaning isn't discovered but handed to us by evolution as an empty box we get to fill. For him that box holds his wife and his work, and he believes people struggle most when whatever filled the box, a job, a role, a relationship, disappears and nothing takes its place. 3. Tom's core financial message is that not owning assets quietly erodes your purchasing power through inflation, whether you notice it or not. He believes the escape route is available to almost anyone, but most people never take the step of investing consistently over decades instead of waiting for certainty. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack IM8: Explore the exclusive offer https://www.im8health.com/knowthyself ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:50 The Evolution of the Show 05:02 Between What Was and What's Next 08:53 The Spark of Divinity and What Tom Is Building 13:52 Nature, Nurture, and Leverage 15:49 The Physics of Progress 19:35 Facing Ego and Inadequacy 24:08 Feeling Most Alive 25:58 A New Virtual World 27:36 The Coming Bifurcation of Civilization 36:52 Superintelligence and Universal Abundance 40:27 Four Futures and How Soon 50:59 Simulation Theory and Consciousness 1:04:13 Why Something Rather Than Nothing 1:10:17 Letting Go of Certainty 1:21:39 A Communion of Subjects 1:30:22 Meaning in a Disenchanted Age 1:40:42 Who Is Tom Without His Ambition 1:42:10 Rewriting Value in a Post-Scarcity World 1:45:55 How the Money System Is Rigged 1:59:15 Is a Crash Coming 2:02:22 A Message to the West and P(doom) 2:09:57 Why Tom Came On the Show 2:12:15 Rewiring at the Root and What's Sacred 2:18:25 The Movie of Your Life and Your Blind Spot 2:21:16 Utility, Novelty, and Fulfillment 2:25:20 The Most Transcendent Moment 2:27:24 Dabbling in Meditation 2:29:13 The Case for First Principles 2:32:30 From Adyashanti to Kyzen 2:38:20 Outro ___________ ✨MORE FROM TOM BILYEU ↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu ↳Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/1nARKz2vTIOb7gC9dusE4b ↳Twitter: https://twitter.com/tombilyeu ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ ↳Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en ↳https://www.impacttheory.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list